More news from around the world. When viewing the 24 Hour “News” cycles made up of 30 second sound bytes, one realizes that the important news is not what the actors/actresses reading teleprompters are saying. The important information is silently scrolling across the bottom of the screen in ticker tape fashion.
Three stories today:
From the UK: Sharia law may result in ‘legal apartheid’
Senior religious leaders attack multiculturalism and sharia law today, warning that they are “disastrous”, socially divisive and are destroying Britain’s culture and values.
Lord Carey and Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor rebut the call of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, for Islamic law to be recognised in Britain.
Lord Carey, the former archbishop of Canterbury, said: “His acceptance of some Muslim laws within British law would be disastrous for the nation. He has overstated the case for accommodating Islamic legal codes.
“His conclusion that Britain will eventually have to concede some place in law for aspects of sharia is a view I cannot share.
“There can be no exceptions to the laws of our land which have been so painfully honed by the struggle for democracy and human rights.”
In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, said that the Government’s promotion of multiculturalism had destroyed the unity that used to hold society together. Immigrants must “obey the laws of this country”.
Writing in this newspaper, Lord Carey condemns multiculturalism as “disastrous”, blames it for creating Islamic ghettos and says that Dr Williams’s support for sharia law will “inevitably lead to further demands from the Muslim community”.
He suggests that such a move could embolden some Muslims to try to turn Britain into a country ruled by Islamic law which, he says, contradicts principles of human rights and allows the persecution of Christians.
Their comments will come as a blow to the embattled archbishop, who is experiencing the darkest days of his six years as leader of the Anglican Church, following his claim that the adoption of certain aspects of sharia law is “unavoidable”.
It also marks a deepening of the rift between Dr Williams and leading church figures over his support for Islamic law. The Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, said that it would be “simply impossible” to have two different legal systems.
Dr Williams sought to defend his comments yesterday, but is fighting to survive calls from politicians and members of his church demanding his resignation. The vast majority of the Church’s ruling body believe he was wrong, a Sunday Telegraph poll shows.
The survey of the General Synod found that only three per cent agreed that aspects of Islamic law should be adopted. Four per cent said he should resign, but two thirds rejected claims that he had lost credibility. A number of bishops have spoken out against the attacks on the archbishop, but a far greater number, including the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, have chosen to distance themselves from the issue.
Dr Williams argued that Muslims should not have to choose between “the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty”. However, Lord Carey says the potential damage of Dr Williams’s idea of incorporating sharia courts into civil law “does not bear thinking about”. He says that it would be dangerous and would encourage some Muslims to try to turn Britain into an Islamic state.
The former archbishop says that accommodating sharia law would lead to further demands. “This is absolutely inevitable, since questions to do with the separation of ‘church and state’ are largely new to Islam. Sharia law trumps civil law every time.”
He adds: “Many Muslim interpreters of sharia believe that it supersedes secular law and assume that its ‘God-given’ status would lead to the point of eventually replacing civil law.”
According to Lord Carey, sharia law disadvantages women and minorities, contradicts principles of human rights and has led to the persecution of Christians in countries such as Nigeria, where churches have been burned down.
Dr Williams’s endorsement of “a legal marketplace in which people opt in and out based on religious affiliation opens the door to a parallel system of justice”, he writes. “The question which must be asked is whether the separate systems promote harmony or continue the creation of ghettos for Muslim communities — the result of disastrous policies of multiculturalism.”
The archbishop had argued that the introduction of parts of Islamic law would help improve social cohesion, but Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor joined Lord Carey in attacking this idea and urged Muslims to do more to integrate.
“The extent to which multiculturalism has been encouraged recently has meant a lessening of the kind of unity that a country needs,” he told this newspaper. “There are common values which are part of the heritage of this country which should be embraced by everybody.
“I don’t believe in a multi-cultural society. When people come into this country they have to obey the laws of the land.” He says that sharia law clashes with British culture and stresses that the Government must act to stop the acceptance of foreign practices. Last week, this newspaper revealed that men with multiple wives had been given the go-ahead by ministers to claim extra welfare benefits.
“The laws of this country don’t allow forced marriages or polygamy,” Lord Carey writes. “A government and a country has a right to make sure those laws are kept.”
Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, the shadow minister for community cohesion, said that setting up rival systems of law would alienate sections of society and may lead to legal apartheid.
I am not Anglican, nor even Catholic, so I will let the article speak for itself. At the bottom of the article are many more links to what is happening inside the UK as Islamic “radicals” take over section of London and outlying areas and establish Shaira law zones. Such research is easy to do on the internet, yet few are looking into what Islam is and instead blame the West and America first, last, and always.
This is something to remember when apologists and appeasers scream that Iran is “peaceful” and means no-one harm at all.
From “Press TV” (Iranian State News) All the news that the mullahs see fit to let out. Almost as good as the farces from North Korea, but with a murderous Islamic slant vs. a worship the “Dear Leader” slant.
Iran: Hezbollah will annihilate Israel:
A top Iranian military official says the world will soon witness the destruction of the Zionist regime at the hand of the Hezbollah movement.
Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari made the remarks in a condolence message to Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah following the assassination of the movement’s top commander, Imad Mughniyah, Fars News Agency reported.
“Mughniyah was an exemplary Muslim, his martyrdom will without a doubt strengthen the resolve of his comrades in their fight against the Zionist regime,” the IRGC commander said.
While it is commonly believed Israel carried out Mughniyah’s assassination plot, Zionist officials have denied any involvement in the crime.
Israel and its number one supporter, the United States, have both praised the murder of Mughniyah, who was killed in a Tuesday car bombing in the Syrian capital of Damascus.
Mind you, Imad Mughniyah was a murdering islamofascist before the world remembered what islamofascism was (why it keeps forgetting is another issue). Here, yet again, we see Iran using the stiff right arm saluting Hezbollah as their proxy against Lebanon and Israel. Fitting and ironic as it is that Mughniyah died in a car bombing, there are questions as to who killed him. Yes, humanity is better off without him, but his “martyrdom” seems to be a nice excuse for Iran to ratchet up war bluster.
Did Iran, its puppet Syria, or a rival faction in Hezbollah kill him for a further excuse to go to war? Some say that may be so. It does give these real fascists (as opposed to what the left labels as fascists) a lever to unify apathetic Muslims to their cause.
Time will tell.
Lastly, all is not well on the Jihadist Front… Not that the media will make it front page news after lying about it for years.
From the Captain’s Quarters Blog:
The terrorists of al-Qaeda in Iraq want to leave the country in the same manner they’ve lived in it. Not only have they killed as many of their perceived enemies and non-combatants possible, now they’re executing their allies as well. Coalition officials played a captured videotape of the executions, showing AQI punishing their partners for insufficient loyalty:
Video provided to CNN shows an al Qaeda in Iraq firing squad executing one-time allies — fellow Sunni extremists — who were not loyal enough to the terror organization, coalition military analysts said.
In the video provided by coalition military officials, armed men wearing masks are shown standing behind nine kneeling men, all of whom are wearing blindfolds or hoods with their hands presumably tied behind their backs. The video shows the men being executed.“Al Qaeda in Iraq, which is foreign led and foreign dominated here inside Iraq, is killing off other Sunni groups that are certainly not supportive of the government of Iraq, currently, or of the foreign occupation, but are not sharing the same ideology that al Qaeda in Iraq has,” Rear Adm. Gregory Smith said.
The video was recovered late last year during a raid on a compound near Samarra that was being used for killing and torture, a coalition official said.
A number of documents — some found in the same raid — bolster the coalition notion that al Qaeda in Iraq is waging a violent campaign against its former allies, intelligence analysts said.
Captain’s Quarters Post Continues below:
AQI seems to have the same curious impulse to document everything that the Nazis had during their reign of terror. Whenever coalition forces overrun an AQI position, they routinely find videos and handwritten records that document their atrocities. The information usually just reinforces the decision by Iraqis to oppose the jihadists.
In this case, however, the victims were jihadists themselves. They crossed AQI by attempting to make themselves into more moderate jihadists, pledging to avoid civilian deaths and perhaps remaining open to reconciliation with mainstream Sunnis. That was enough to make them suspect in AQI’s estimation, and their documentation shows their rejection of their potential allies against the American forces in Iraq, even as late as the end of last year.
AQI appears determined to alienate themselves from any potential allies, even in the dire straits in which they find themselves now. Rather than compromise on moderating their approach, AQI seems determined to kill even Islamist extremists that don’t acquiesce to their particular view of jihad. Their nihilism guarantees their eventual extinction in Iraq.
History shows that many jihadist groups met such ends as AQI, and AQ in general is likely facing. AQ is like the mafia or a street gang. You get in easy enough, but the only way you get out in in a box or in little pieces.
Luckily, the jihadists seem to not learn history. Unfortunately, the West often forgets their own history of having to fight jihadists as far into Europe as Tours and Vienna and instead wrongly blames itself for what Islam is.
Fitting in with the general theme of this post, is this article on the outcome of the Pakistani elections: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/P/PAKISTAN_MUSHARRAF?SITE=CODER&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT.
If the analysis of the election outcome is correct, it seems the Pakistanis are preferring the company of AQ and the Taliban. Curiously overlooked is the Pakistani opposition’s history of corruption and graft. The open question is the willingness of the opposition to continue the fight against the extremists in their midst. So far, they haven’t exactly inspired confidence. They may need to face President Bush’s choice, either you’re with us or against us.
It would be a great moral, spiritual and intellectual victory in the war against Islamic extremism if the Archbishop of Canterbury were forced to resign.
I cannot imagine that Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith intended to appoint an Archbishop whose acquiescence to Sharia Law would mean the destruction of the Church of England which she heads as well as the destruction of the Monarchy.
Throughout the history of the British people there has remained a common thread that the laws of God were above the laws of King and of man. However, at no time did they mean the British mean that Allah and Islam should reign over them.